[Air-L] IM interviews not interviews?

Sun Aug 18 12:24:56 PDT 2013

Hmmm.....  It would be a pretty narrow definition of interviewing that
would simply dismiss IM as interviewing.  Perhaps the reviewer has an issue
with how the interview situation or the interview itself is framed in your
paper.  Hard to say.  I can imagine if a reviewer has a specific conception
of interviewing as intensive engagement and somehow interpreted your
interviews to be mere question/answer sessions, this could cause the
reviewer's reaction, rather than the medium through which the interview was
conducted.  Again, I have nothing to base this on.  I'm just wondering if
the reviewer might be asking for something other than simply justifying IM
as interviewing.

In any case, the citations you mention contain good rationale for using IM
as a suitable interviewing format.  But I would encourage you to include
older sources, rather than assuming that the recent works subsume older
texts.  These can lend strong support for such methods, not only because
they demonstrate to the reader that there is longstanding precedence for
such methods, but also because the novelty of the media for interaction
forces the authors to articulate many of the strengths and weaknesses of
the various media they're communicating with--so there's usually a lot more
space devoted to explanation and rationale of the method.

You might take a look at the 2009 book by Nalita James and Hugh Busher
called "Online Interviewing" (Sage) that goes into great detail about
various principles, practices, and complications of online interviewing.
They refer to a lot of foundational empirical studies in their book, which
gives further support for the strong history of instant messaging (or
similar) media for interviewing.

Best,

annette

*****************************************************
Annette N. Markham, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Aesthetics & Communication, Aarhus
University
Guest Professor, Department of Informatics, Umeå University, Sweden
Affiliate Professor, School of Communication, Loyola University, Chicago
amarkham at gmail.com
http://markham.internetinquiry.org/
Twitter: annettemarkham

On Sun, Aug 18, 2013 at 7:47 PM, Jenny Davis <jdavis4 at neo.tamu.edu> wrote:

> Hi Alex,
>
> I am writing for Sociology. I'm aware of several articles that defend the
> use of Instant Message, and several that point out the weaknesses, but
> haven't been able to find one that says they are categorically NOT
> interviews.
>
> Here are some citations I use in the paper:
>
> Traverse, Max. New methods, old problems: A sceptical view of innovation
> in qualitative research. Qualitative Research. 9:161
>
> Enochsson, Ann-Britt. 2011. “Who Benefits from Synchronous Online
> Communication?: A Comparison of Face-to-Face and Synchronous Online
> Interviews with Children.” Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences: 15-22
>
> Markham, Annette N. 2013. Remix Culture, Remix Methods: Reframing
> Qualitative Inquiry for Social Media Contexts. In Denzin, N., & Giardina, M
> (Eds.). Global Dimensions of Qualitative Inquiry. Left Coast Press.
>
> Hesse-Biber, Sharlene and Amy J. Griffin. 2013. “ Internet-Mediated
> Technologies and Mixed Methods Research: Problems and Prospects. “ Journal
> of Mixed Methods Research 7(1):43-61.
>
> Beneito-Montagut, Roser. 2011. “Ethnography Goes Online: Towards a
> User-Centered Methodology to Research Interpersonal Communication on the
> Internet.” Qualitative Research 11(6):716-735
>
> I could certainly also include some older stuff (like Hine's virtual
> ethnography or Miller and Slater's book), but I the more recent stuff
> pretty much subsumes those texts.
>
> Thanks!!
>
> Jenny
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Alex Leavitt" <alexleavitt at gmail.com>
> To: "Jenny Davis" <jdavis4 at neo.tamu.edu>
> Cc: "AoIR-L" <air-l at listserv.aoir.org>
> Sent: Sunday, August 18, 2013 1:03:17 PM
> Subject: Re: [Air-L] IM interviews not interviews?
>
>
>
> It'd be helpful to know 1) what you've cited so far in defense of them,
> and 2) what disciplinary audience you're working with (eg., anthropology
> journal reviewers would react to IM interviews different from psychology
> journal reviewers).
>
> There are a number of papers that pop up from a simple Google search –
> https://www.google.com/search?q=instant+message+interviews+method – that
> seem to agree that IM really isn't that different, though it'd seem
> adequate to map out the area and cite a fair amount of people in a few
> sentences as justification.
>
>
>
>
> Alexander Leavitt
> PhD Student
> USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism
> http://alexleavitt.com
> Twitter: @alexleavitt
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Aug 18, 2013 at 6:46 AM, Jenny Davis < jdavis4 at neo.tamu.edu >
> wrote:
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> Long time lurker and responder, first time inquirer.
>
> I am working on an R&R for a paper in which I use both FtF and IM
> interviews. I am aware of the literature that talks about the strengths and
> weaknesses of IM as an interview mode, but one of the reviewers says that
> IM does not constitute an interview at all, but merely a question/answer
> session. I want to address this critique adequately. Is anyone familiar
> with specific articles/books that make this argument and/or push back
> against it?
>
>
> Thanks!!
>
> Jenny L. Davis
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Sociology & Anthropology
> James Madison University
>
> email: Davis5JL at jmu.edu
> Twitter: Jenny_L_Davis
> Blog: Cyborgology.org
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